With Baited Breath
by Starbuck223
Summary: Janeway's reaction to Mark's letter during the fourth season episode Hunters. JC


With Baited Breath

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or the stories from Voyager. What I do own are all the little scenes that they forget to write and I add in later.

A/N: I just watched Hunters and felt the need to write this.

Kathryn Janeway let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, and reread the words in front of her.

Mark hadn't waited for her. He was married. He'd moved on and found someone else. Aside from her family, no one would be waiting for her on Earth.

From the moment she saw it her heart sank, but now that she had finally managed to exhale, she realized that she was not as upset as she should have been.

Mark waited for almost four years. It was only natural that he should give up after all that. Kathryn hadn't even been in a relationship with him for that amount of time.

No, she decided. He had every right, and he was a good man. She wanted him to be happy…

But there was something else. She couldn't place it at first, but finally it came to her: relief.

The more Kathryn thought about it, the more she realized that though she loved Mark, she did not quite fit with him. It wasn't the first time she questioned her engagement since coming to the Delta Quadrant. On Earth, marriage had seemed so far away.

Not as far as when I wound up out here, she thought sadly to herself. Perhaps it was for the better. Not just Mark's marriage but everything. She truly had an amazing group of people on board Voyager, and they were more of a family to her than she ever envisioned herself having with Mark.

What really caused her pain was to think of Chakotay. They had come so close to sparking a relationship on New Earth, but she had reminded him of protocol to keep him at bay. When that failed she resorted to her engagement, despite how badly she wanted to explore what could have been.

Kathryn Janeway was not that sort of woman. She was determined and she was gutsy, and she would go to hell and back for her beliefs, but she was faithful. No matter how much she wanted to give in to Chakotay, she couldn't with the knowledge that Mark waited for her on Earth.

Now she bristled with slight annoyance at Mark. She had remained faithful to him when not only removed from the Alpha Quadrant, but further when she was marooned on a planet with her first officer, for what they suspected might be forever.

All that time she held back, and now her relationship with Chakotay might be ruined beyond repair, for all she knew. Of course they still dined together and discussed Voyager and the crew, but the warmth she had once felt was beginning to cool. She was worried that with her hiding behind protocol and a lost fiancé he would move on and leave her in the dust, so to speak.

That was when she decided that she would tell Chakotay about the letter. It wasn't like her to inform anyone of matters in her personal life, but she needed him to know. He had to realize that she would only share such information for a specific purpose. He would realize that she waited in vain and felt foolish, and maybe they could recapture what they began on New Earth.

Her opportunity appeared sooner than she thought when Chakotay prodded her in her ready room. He was entirely blunt; asking who the letter was from and standing there with eyes expecting her to pour out the entirety of a very personal letter.

She almost didn't want to tell him. She knew now that because he asked, the meaning of her confiding in him would be lost. She put on the best face she could to hide her pain, knowing he'd assume she was upset by the letter, and told him about her puppies and Mark's marriage.

Quickly she added that she never expected Mark to wait even as long as he did, though she assumed that a true love would have waited forever. She told Chakotay that it was for the best; that Mark waited much longer than most, and no one could be expected to go through what Voyager's loved ones were going through back in the Alpha Quadrant.

When Harry called her to the bridge, Kathryn was all too happy for the excuse to end the painful conversation she was having with Chakotay. She realized that it was foolish to expect him to rekindle what they'd had, and vowed she would return to thinking as a captain should; not plotting an affair with her first officer.

As she stormed out of her ready room, intent on getting to the bridge, she missed Chakotay's response. Hidden in the swoosh of the ready room's doors were the words,

"I would never stop waiting for you."


End file.
